universal_monsters_cinematic_universefandomcom-20200213-history
The Mummy
The Mummy is the first film in the Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe. It stars Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Courtney B. Vance, Chasty Ballesteros, Jake Johnson and Russell Crowe. Plot In 1127 A.D., several English crusader knights bury an Egyptian ruby within the tomb of one of their member. In present-day London, a construction crew discovers the tomb and a mysterious man is authorized to investigate the site. Ominous reporting on the news notes that people are not as far from important relics of the past as they realize. In a flashback to the New Kingdom era, Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) is first in line to succeed her father Menehptre (Selva Rasalingam) until his second wife gives birth to a son. Determined to claim the throne for herself, Ahmanet summons Set (Javier Botet), who agrees to help her if she uses a mystical dagger to transfer his spirit into a corporeal form. After killing her family, Ahmanet attempts to sacrifice her lover to Set but is captured by her father's priests and condemned to be mummified alive for eternity. Her sarcophagus is buried in Mesopotamia and submerged in a pool of mercury so that her monstrous form will not escape. In present-day Iraq, Sergeant Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and Corporal Chris Vail (Jake Johnson), while on Long Range Reconnaissance for the U.S. Army, discover the tomb of Ahmanet after calling in an airstrike on an insurgent stronghold. Jennifer Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), an archaeologist who had a one-night stand with Nick, arrives and investigates the tomb, correctly concluding that it is a prison. After Nick extracts Ahmanet's sarcophagus from the pool of mercury, Colonel Greenway (Courtney B. Vance), Nick's superior, places it on a transport plane headed to England. During the flight, Vail becomes possessed by Ahmanet's power after being bitten by a camel spider while inside the tomb. After attempting to open the sarcophagus, he stabs Greenway and tries to attack the group, forcing Nick to kill him. A huge number of crows then assault the plane, causing it to crash and killing everyone on board except for Jennifer, who is parachuted off the plane by Nick. Nick awakens a day later in a morgue in Oxford, discovering that he has been brought back to life by unknown means, and he learns from Vail's sardonic ghost that he has been cursed by Ahmanet, who seeks to use him as a replacement vessel for Set. Ahmanet's mummy escapes from the sarcophagus and begins feeding on rescue workers to regenerate her decomposed body. Turning the workers into zombie minions, she lures Nick and Jennifer into a trap, forcing the two to fight off the minions as they unsuccessfully try to escape. Ahmanet also recovers the 'Dagger of Set' from a reliquary in a nearby church. At the last moment, however, unknown soldiers appear and subdue Ahmanet. Their leader, Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe), explains that Jennifer is an agent of Prodigium, a secret society dedicated to hunting supernatural threats. He reveals much of his own history and confirms that Nick was cursed when Ahmanet's tomb was opened. Although first welcoming Dr. Jekyll's help, Nick (as well as Jennifer) become horrified to discover the doctor's intention to complete the ritual, allowing Set to possess Nick completely, in the belief that this will render Set vulnerable and allow his evil to be ended forever. Meanwhile, Ahmanet summons a spider to possess a Prodigium technician and frees herself from captivity, wreaking havoc, death, and destruction in the process. After verbally sparring with Nick, Jekyll succumbs to his own dark impulses and transforms into Edward Hyde, his murderous and psychotic alternate personality, even as Ahmanet wreaks havoc outside unbeknownst to them. Nick rebuffs the repulsive Hyde's offer of an alliance between them, and Hyde attacks him. However, Nick manages to stop him with the serum Jekyll uses to suppress his evil side. He and Jennifer then escape from Prodigium, but they run into Ahmanet once again. She steals back the dagger, summons an army of deceased English crusaders to serve her, and creates a massive sandstorm that ravages London, with Nick and Jennifer narrowly escaping her grasp. The undead knights slaughter the Prodigium soldiers in the tomb discovered during the film's opening, and Ahmanet finally recovers the ruby and places it in the dagger's pommel, granting her all that she needs to free Set aside from Nick himself. Guided by the spectral Vail, Nick and Jennifer flee into the London Underground tunnels, but they are soon attacked by Ahmanet's minions. Ahmanet captures Jennifer and drowns her, hoping to break her hold over Nick. Nick puts up a determined fight, but he gives up and lets himself embrace Ahmanet, using it as a ruse to steal the dagger and shatter the ruby. However, he sees the lifeless Jennifer and bets on stabbing himself. His body is partially possessed by Set, who proceeds to join Ahmanet to uphold his end of the bargain. However, looking back at Jennifer's dead body, Nick regains control, using Set's powers to overpower and suck Ahmanet's life out. With her transformed back into a shriveled mummy, Nick then harnesses Set's powers to resurrect Jennifer, saying goodbye before becoming overwhelmed by Set's nature and disappearing. Soon, Jennifer regroups with Dr. Jekyll, and they tensely discuss if Nick, now fused with Set in an uncertain way, will use his powers for good, evil, or something else entirely. Ahmanet's corpse is lowered into a locked pool of mercury within the Prodigium base for safekeeping. Later on in the desert at Egypt, Nick resurrects Vail, and the two set out on a new adventure. Cast * Tom Cruise as Sergeant Nick Morton - A U.S. military man, who unintentionally unearths the tomb of Princess Ahmanet, unleashing an unspeakable evil. Nick becomes haunted, fused with, and possessed by Set after Ahmanet puts a curse on him. * Annabelle Wallis as Jennifer "Jenny" Halsey - An archeologist who has a past with Nick. She secretly works for the monster-hunting organization known as Prodigium. * Sofia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet - She is loosely based on Imhotep from the original Mummy films, as well as the ancient Egyptian goddess, Amunet. Once in line to be the queen of Ancient Egypt, Ahmanet murdered her father and his family in order to resurrect Set, an act for which she was cursed for all eternity and buried alive, until she is accidentally freed as the titular Mummy. * Jake Johnson as Corporal Chris Vail - Nick's friend and closest ally. * Courtney B. Vance as Colonel Greenway - Nick and Vail's superior officer. * Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll - A brilliant scientist who leads Prodigium, an organization dedicated to locating, containing, and when necessary, destroying monsters. Due to a failed experiment intended to repress his evil side, he must regularly inject himself with a serum to prevent himself from transforming into his evil and monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Edward Hyde. * Marwan Kenzari as Malik - Jekyll's chief of security and a member of Prodigium. * Javier Botet as Set - The ancient Egyptian god of deserts, storms, darkness, and violence, who aids Princess Ahmanet in her quest to rule Egypt. Set has a connection with Nick Morton, as the latter is intended to be the human vessel for his resurrection. * Selva Rasalingam as King Menehptre - A pharaoh who is Ahmanet's father. Advertising and Marketing Posters The Mummy poster.jpg The Mummy poster 2.jpg The Mummy poster 3.jpg Promotional Videos The Mummy - Trailer Tease (HD)|Trailer tease. The Mummy - Official Trailer (HD)|Trailer. The Mummy - Inside Look (HD)|Inside look. The Mummy - Official Trailer 2 HD|Trailer 2. Critical Response The Mummy received generally negative reviews from critics, with criticism aimed at its incoherent narrative, inconsistent tone, sub-par acting, and shoehorned plot points setting up the Dark Universe. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 16% based on 246 reviews, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Lacking the campy fun of the franchise's most recent entries and failing to deliver many monster-movie thrills, The Mummy suggests a speedy unraveling for the Dark Universe." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 34 out of 100 based on 44 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScoregave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. Vince Mancini of Uproxx gave the film a negative review, writing: "If you like incomprehensible collections of things that vaguely resemble other things you might've enjoyed in the past, The Mummy is the movie for you." IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film a D-, calling it the worst film of Cruise's career and criticizing its lack of originality, saying: "It's one thing to excavate the iconography of old Hollywood, it's another to exploit it. This isn't filmmaking, it's tomb-raiding." Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote: "The problem at its heart is that the reality of what the movie is—a Tom Cruise vehicle—is at war with the material. The actor, at 54, is still playing that old Cruise trope, the selfish cocky semi-scoundrel who has to grow up. ... The trouble is that Cruise, at least in a high-powered potboiler like this one, is so devoted to maintaining his image as a clear and wholesome hero that his flirtation with the dark side is almost entirely theoretical." Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave the film one star out of four, saying: "How meh is The Mummy? Let me count the ways. For all the huffing and puffing and digital desperation from overworked computers, this reboot lands onscreen with a resounding thud." Glen Kenny of RogerEbert.com gave the film 1.5/4 stars, writing:  I found something almost admirable about the film's cheek. It's amazingly relentless in its naked borrowing from other, better horror and sci-fi movies that I was able to keep occupied making a checklist of the movies referenced. Entertainment Weekly's Chis Nashawaty wrote that the film "feels derivative and unnecessary and like it was written by committee." In BBC World News Culture, Nicholas Barber calls the film "a mish-mash of wildly varying tones and plot strands, from its convoluted beginning to its shameless non-end. Tom Cruise's new film barely qualifies as a film at all. None of it makes sense. The film delivers all the chases, explosions, zombies and ghosts you could ask for, and there are a few amusing lines and creepy moments, but, between the headache-inducing flashbacks and hallucinations, the narrative would be easier to follow if it were written in hieroglyphics." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that the film "has some nice moments but is basically a mess. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb, a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts." Empire film magazine was more positive, with Dan Jolin awarding the film three stars. "It's running and jumping grin-flashing business as usual for Cruise, once more on safe character territory as an Ethan Hunt-esque action protagonist who couples up with a much younger woman, while another woman chases after him," he wrote. "And if the next installment-teasing conclusion is anything to go by, Cruise seemed to have enough fun making this that he may just return for more." Trivia *Unlike previous mummy films so far, this film will reimagines the titular mummy's emergence and terror the character unleashed in modern world instead of in 1930s. *The Mummy is also a sequel to the Mummy movies from the late 90's and early to mid 2000's. * This is also the last film in the Dark Universe franchise due to it being a flop. Category:Films Category:Article stubs